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The Long Dark Survival Game Launches An Experimental Branch For Linux

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The Long Dark is a survival game I've been excited to play for over a year now, as the style is fantastic, and it has some really great reviews.

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About the game
The Long Dark is a thoughtful, exploration-survival experience that challenges solo players to think for themselves as they explore an expansive frozen wilderness. There are no zombies -- only you, the cold, and everything Mother Nature can throw at you.

It will also feature a story mode, which is one of the reasons I am most interested in it, but their store page states that's not due until the full launch.

To access it, you need to enter the password QjDcT5s3JXw8hcUL, and then select the test_linux beta. Full instructions can be found here.

You can find The Long Dark on Steam. It's in Early Access, so remember it will be buggy, and even more so as the Linux version is even more experimental right now.


If you do try it out, be sure to let us know what you think! Sadly, I am way over my budget for games, so it's sitting in my list to cover later. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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12 comments
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GNUzel Oct 26, 2015
Yassss. Buying right now.

Edit: Can't download yet.


Last edited by GNUzel on 27 October 2015 at 1:32 am UTC
lvlark Oct 27, 2015
(based on reviews/video)
No zombies - check
High immersion - check
Upcoming story mode - check
Early Access - che... wait, that's not a reason to buy.. yet..
Wishlisted though.
Liam Dawe Oct 27, 2015
I've sent the developers messages on twitter to show them how to fix the download, I would comment on their Steam forum but it seems locked down to owners only.
Samsai Oct 27, 2015
Cool, I've been waiting for this game to come to Linux. I might not buy it just yet though but I will definitely keep an eye out.
sobkas Oct 27, 2015
Like almost every unity3d build on linux it have problems with locales that use , instead of . for decimal separator.
So setting start options to LC_ALL=C %command% might be needed.
GNUzel Oct 27, 2015
Well the download works for me now, so I think they fixed it.
Liam Dawe Oct 27, 2015
Yeah, they tweeted saying they got my message :)
Xpander Oct 29, 2015
had some audio issues with the game and it crashed when entering into the cabin but seems pretty solid for a unity game otherwise

too bad its singleplayer only :(

View video on youtube.com
tuubi Oct 29, 2015
View PC info
  • Supporter
Quoting: Xpandertoo bad its singleplayer only :(
Really? I guess I am interested after all. ;) IMHO the multiplayer survival space is getting a bit crowded, zombies or no.
1mHfoksd1Z Oct 29, 2015
After watching a playthrough on YouTube I am quite pleased with the game as it is right now so I might go ahead and buy it. Not sure tho, but I'll have to decide within the next few days while it's still 33% off.
It's kind of a risk considering the Linux version is just experimental and they can still decide to drop it, but AFAIK that's pretty rare for Unity games. But then again, Unity games don't perform very well on my system, so... like 7DTD which is almost unplayable (certainly not enjoyable) for me now, but it had 60FPS on one of the earlist versions on Windows

Anyway, big KUDOS for not having zombies. I was looking for a good man-vs-nature survival game for so long, especially one set in winter. This looks very promising, and has enough features already to make me buy it, but if the devs keep improving it, that would be really awesome.

EDIT: I bought it and played it for 7 hours. I survived 20 days and still going. This game is awesome. So many near-death situations, so many bad decisions that cost me alot, having to take so many risks just to survive one more day. The best moment so far was when i was approaching my home from fishing and hunting and I said "This are starting to go very well for me" and just as I was about to open the door I was suddenly attacked by a wolf and that scared the s out of me. I was afraid to go out the next morning and that thaught me the lessen to never let my guard down because that will get me killed.
As to performance: This game is running perfectly on my 3 years old laptop on medium settings, it only lagged once during a very severe storm. It also crashed twice in a total play time of 7 hours. It wasn't a big deal as this game autosaves everytime you sleep/rest or you enter/leave a building. I also had a situation right when I first played this game as I payed the same button too many times (open a can and heat it afterwards) as I didn't see the progress bar appearing in the top-right of the screen, and the game got stuck there. It's only those three incidents but it's really not a big deal at all. Considering that the Linux version is experimental, the stability is very good... for me, anyway.
Arch Linux x64, i7 3rd gen (Ivy), 8 Gb RAM, Nvidia 610m.


Last edited by 1mHfoksd1Z on 1 November 2015 at 10:36 am UTC
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